The Scandinavian nation is the latest European country to ban full face coverings.

Hundreds of demonstrators in Denmark wore burqas and niqabs to protest a new law banning full face veils, which came into effect this week.

Around 1,300 Muslim and non-Muslim Danes descended on the streets of the capital, Copenhagen and Denmark’s second-biggest city, Aarhus.

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The new law, which outlaws all facial coverings including ski masks and fake beards, doesn’t explicitly reference burqas. Even so, protestors cited the right for women to dress as they wish and said the law unfairly targets Muslim women, who make up 5 per cent of the country’s population.

Women who don’t follow the ruling to remove their veils will be fined 1,000 kroner (Dhs573).

The Scandinavian nation first considered the ‘burqa ban’ in February, and it was passed in May.

“It is incompatible with the values of the Danish society or the respect for the community to keep the face hidden when meeting each other in the public space,” Justice Minister Soren Pape Poulsen said at the time.

This move follows in the footsteps of fellow European countries France, Netherlands, Bulgaria and Bavaria.

France became the first European country to ban the full-face veil in public places back in 2011. Meanwhile, Netherlands introduced a ban on face-covering veils in schools, hospitals and public transport in June.